Natural selection acts to ensure the ‘survival of the fittest’. But random chance has also played a huge role in the history of life on Earth, from meteorite strikes to massive earthquakes. Randomness also lies at the core of evolutionary processes; the impact of a chance mutation, or the ‘lottery’ of sexual selection. In this lecture, we’ll look at some remarkable examples of evolutionary chance and reveal why they are sometimes less random than you might expect. This lecture was recorded by Ro...
Nov 20, 2023•59 min
Why did the Iranian Revolution catch so many in US and UK Governments by surprise in 1978-79? Why were so many enthusiastic about the fall of the Shah? Why did so many Western observers - including Michel Foucault, Fred Halliday, and Edward Said, misread Ayatollah Khomeini? This lecture examines readings and mis-readings of the Iranian Revolution in Europe and the United States from the perspective of today’s uprising in Iran. Are we repeating the analytical mistakes of the past? This lecture wa...
Nov 15, 2023•2 hr 6 min
Firms hope to get money for their investment decisions from investors. The latest have to decide how to maximize the returns they get while simultaneously minimizing their risk. This lecture will introduce two key concepts of financial management: Portfolio Theory and Capital Asset Pricing Model and will discuss how the CAPM gives us one of the inputs for NPV, the discount rate. This lecture was recorded by Raghavendra Rau on 13 November 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London The transcript and down...
Nov 15, 2023•2 hr 5 min
Music is a temporal art, unfolding like a ribbon and transforming our experience of time itself. This lecture demonstrates how music harnesses our unique and intricate listening faculties creating a complex interplay between sounding events and our internal predictions. This forms a predictive tapestry whereby the listener - usually unconsciously - ‘explains’ temporal events in reference to multi Music is a temporal art, unfolding like a ribbon and transforming our experience of time itself. Thi...
Nov 13, 2023•2 hr 2 min
In the late 19th-century, astronomical research could be practical, using telescopes and spectroscopes, or be based on mathematical reasoning. Astronomers could be professionals or amateurs, and explored the heavens in observatories, on field trips to exotic countries, in their own backyards, or aboard hot air balloons. Although this diversity of research practices enabled historically marginalised astronomers, such as women or those of a working-class background, to access astronomical research...
Nov 10, 2023•31 min
Extant manuscripts, early library catalogues, lists of loans and wills are key witnesses for better understanding the mathematical practices and innovations in different milieux at the end of the Middle Ages. A systematic exploration of those sources unravels intellectual exchanges, scientific practices and methods. They also allow to delineate ‘communities of learning’, composed of scholars versed in similar readings and practices. Those networks of medieval scholars, fostered by the university...
Nov 10, 2023•32 min
During the late 19th century, individuals and organizations planned for years in advance to observe a total solar eclipse. These high-stakes astronomical expeditions involved many scientific practitioners whose collective eclipse experience helped to grow and sustain 19th-century mathematical communities. Especially in the United States, connections forged beneath the sun’s shadow sustained networks of communication, facilitated periodical publication, and set precedent for government funding in...
Nov 10, 2023•2 hr 3 min
Between us and the medieval men and women who went on pilgrimage there stand many impediments to understanding: the Reformation, the Enlightenment, secularisation. This lecture will explore how tracing ancient routes on foot, and experiencing travel as people did in an age before trains and cars, can offer insights into the past. But is the sense of being accompanied by ghosts a delusion? Tom Holland will draw on experiences of reading Chaucer and undertaking pilgrimages during and after the pan...
Nov 09, 2023•55 min
This considers a set of superhuman female figures found in medieval and early modern European cultures- Mother Nature, the roving nocturnal lady often called Herodias, the British fairy queen, and the Gaelic Cailleach. None seem to be surviving ancient deities, and yet there is nothing Christian about any of them either. It is suggested that they force us to reconsider our own existing terminology when writing the religious history of Europe. This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on 8 Novem...
Nov 09, 2023•57 min
Different models of economic modernity competed during the Cold War. Washington feared that the transition from colonial peasant societies would provide an opening for Marxists, as in Vietnam. But by 1989, the Soviet economic model was in crisis and attempts to create a market economy led to Putin’s kleptocracy. In China, the disaster of Mao’s Great Leap Forward was followed by successful transformation. Why did the Soviet Union fail where China succeeded? This lecture was recorded by Martin Dau...
Nov 08, 2023•59 min
Uncompromising control of her career and pursuit of a bold vision have made Barbra Streisand a sometimes controversial figure since her debut in Funny Girl, despite her popularity and many awards. She has been stigmatised for being a powerful woman in the entertainment industry: her work as a producer and director have shattered the glass ceiling but not without personal cost. This lecture explores how her insistence on having complete control over her entire artistic output allowed her to recre...
Nov 06, 2023•56 min
Our exploration of the Solar System has revealed a remarkable diversity of landscapes, from the frozen deserts of Mars, which billions of years ago ran with water, to the hellish surface of Venus and the strange hydrocarbon seas of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. In our voyages to these places we have discovered what may be the most common home for life in the Universe - the ice-covered oceans found in many of Jupiter and Saturn's moons. A lecture by Chris Lintott recorded on 25 October 2023 at Ba...
Oct 31, 2023•59 min
Our brains are computers. What if we could enhance their processing power? Medical technology now allows for brain signals to be read and translated to reverse paralysis. Deep brain stimulation is also used to treat diseases such as Parkinson’s. Neural interfaces are already improving lives. How do they work? What’s next for our physical connection to digital technology? And what are the implications of having new hardware in our heads? A lecture by Victoria Baines recorded on 24 October 2023 at...
Oct 30, 2023•59 min
Is politics merely a gaslighting of the oppressed, a cloak for the rulers to exploit the ruled? Plato’s Republic confronted the challenges of political office (archē). By working through the ideas of this dialogue and comparing them to the present day, the lecture offers a new way of understanding the role of officeholders and the ethical demands placed on them. It argues that Plato took the risk of abuse of power far more seriously than has been generally recognised. A lecture by Melissa Lane r...
Oct 27, 2023•2 hr 3 min
Iran’s first revolution in 1906 provided the country with a constitution and parliament, laying the foundations for its political development over the next century. Although overshadowed by the later Islamic Revolution of 1979, it was the Constitutional Revolution - modelled on the British constitution and British political ideas - that gave birth to the modern state and shaped future political development. This lecture will explore the ideas that shaped the revolution and its lasting legacy on ...
Oct 25, 2023•2 hr 3 min
The theory of evolution is often described as the biggest idea in the history of humanity. But evolutionary theory itself has evolved over time, often via landmark contributions from some very unusual characters. This lecture investigates some of the biggest ideas about evolution, as well as some of the most ill-conceived. We’ll meet aristocrats and criminals, clergymen and dictators and consider how evolution is as much a product of history as it is of biology. A lecture by Robin May recorded o...
Oct 20, 2023•2 hr
Literature has always played a key role in social and political life in Africa, even when it is not deliberately or obviously activist in its aims or form. African writers like Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Chinua Achebe, Obi Wali and poets Christopher Okigbo and Stella Nyanzi have long been seen as key thinkers and engaged intellectuals. Tracing this history, this lecture shows how creative work changes society and discusses the role of literary collectives such as Chimureng, Jalada, and Bakwa. A lecture ...
Oct 18, 2023•58 min
Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI are changing our lives and society as a whole from how we shop to how we access news and make decisions. Are current and traditional legal frameworks and new governance strategies able to guard against the novel risks posed by new systems? How can we mitigate AI bias, protect privacy, and make algorithmic systems more accountable? How are data protection, non-discrimination, free speech, libel, and liability laws standing up to these changes? A lecture b...
Oct 18, 2023•59 min
Why are there chess Grandmasters, but not Grandmasters of noughts and crosses (otherwise known as tic-tac-toe)? It is because chess is “harder” – but what do we really mean by that? Answering that question leads us to develop the idea of mathematical complexity, which is a measure of how ‘big’ a game is. We’ll look at the complexity of popular games, and ask: what is the hardest game of all time? A lecture by Sarah Hart recorded on 10 October 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London The transcript and...
Oct 16, 2023•2 hr
In the early twentieth century Black creatives were America’s artistic vanguard. In the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans created new platforms to promote their work and learned to navigate white gatekeepers who controlled America’s publishing and cultural industries. At the forefront of this movement, women were among its most radical thinkers: as playwrights, poets, novelists and artists such as Gwendolyn Bennett and Nella Larsen, they explored new ways of th...
Oct 12, 2023•59 min
They came, they saw, they felt conquered. Turning to the later works of Samuel Selvon and George Lamming, and the writing of Andrew Salkey, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, and Linton Kwesi Johnson, this lecture will reflect on the aesthetics of Caribbean emigrant authors. Considering how the form of their works reflected a changing Britain in the 1960s-80s, it will explore how their motifs, and themes of fragmentation and rupture, signal the emergence of a new Black British consciousness. A lecture by ...
Oct 11, 2023•57 min
In finance, everything comes down to promises. When you invest money, questions arise: how profitable will it be down the line, and is it worth investing today? Determining the exact amount of those returns and whether investing is worthwhile can be challenging. This lecture will introduce the concept of Net Present Value. It will discuss how NPV helps managers satisfy shareholders without direct interaction, and how it can evaluate uncertain future payoffs in order to meet investor expectations...
Oct 04, 2023•2 hr 3 min
This lecture explores the death penalty's roots, its abolition in England and Wales, and its continuation in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Analysing the Privy Council's role in perpetuating this practice, this punishment is examined closely. Is it a colonial relic which reinforces societal injustices? Is it time for its complete abolition? A lecture by Leslie Thomas KC recorded on 28 September 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available ...
Oct 02, 2023•55 min
The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere determines what global temperature is reached. So, just like a braking distance, future warming is determined by global emissions today, the year we start emission reductions, and the year we achieve net zero. The goal of climate policy is no longer up for debate: we have to reduce global emissions to net zero. We just need to decide when and how fast. A lecture by Myles Allen recorded on 26 September 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London The tra...
Sep 28, 2023•2 hr 5 min
Microplastics - tiny plastic particles less than 5mm long - were first identified in the ocean but are now known to be ubiquitous throughout the environment, within soil, air food and water. Recently, microplastics have been detected in human blood, placenta, and other tissues (liver, lung, colon) raising concerns about potential adverse health effects. This lecture reviews the science on microplastics and whether we should be concerned about them, compared with other known environmental hazards...
Sep 27, 2023•2 hr 5 min
This lecture looks at a series of divine female figures in the ancient world from the Middle East to Western Europe: Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite and Venus. What they have in common, is that to varying degrees they all combined the personae of deities of sexual love and of war. It brings out the special characteristics of each, traces the relationships between them, and shows how each in the sequence, influenced the development of the next. A lecture by Professor Ronald Hutton recorded on ...
Sep 22, 2023•1 hr
Portrayals of hackers in the movies lead us to believe that cybercriminals are young white males who wear hoodies. The cybercriminal population is actually much more diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, neurodiversity and other aspects. Motivations range from the ideological, to profit, to mischief and back again. We will meet the cybercriminals in all their variety and discover how a better understanding of their demographics and drivers can help citizens, businesses and governments prot...
Sep 21, 2023•59 min
How is music able to convey and trigger such range and depth of emotion? Why does it elicit joy, sorrow, consolation and the chills? Employing research and theoretical models from neuroscience, psychology and musicology, we examine the extraordinary ways that primal and conditioned listening combine to such complex emotive effect. Examples from pop, jazz, rock, film, global, traditional and classical forms are presented under the light of nostalgia, visual imagery, emotional contagion, rhythmic ...
Sep 19, 2023•58 min
The discovery that we live in an ordinary galaxy, one of several hundred billion in the observable Universe, instigated a profound change in thinking about our place in the Universe. This first lecture covers the Great Debate of the early twentieth century as new telescopes and new ways of observing the cosmos put our Milky Way in its place; and looks at how subsequent observations helped us understand how galaxies like our own formed and evolved. A lecture by Professor Chris Lintott recorded on...
Sep 14, 2023•57 min
In the Annual Gray's Inn Reading, Dame Siobhan Keegan will present a lecture on the legal topic of freedom of expression. A lecture by The Right Hon Dame Siobhan Keegan recorded on 15 June 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/grays-inn-23 Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are ...
Jun 28, 2023•59 min
